Undergraduate Research Experience At Community Colleges

社区学院的本科研究经验

• 批准号: 1820707
• 负责人: Ellen Bluth
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: Eastern Iowa Community College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-10-01 至 2022-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1820707&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Undergraduate; Research; Experience; Community; Colleges

Community and tribal colleges are a critical source of future STEM workers from groups that are now underrepresented in STEM disciplines. To interest students at these institutions in STEM careers and to encourage persistence in STEM majors, it is important that they have authentic research experiences in the first few years of college. In this project, Eastern Iowa Community College will determine the effectiveness of undergraduate research courses as an avenue to give community college students authentic research experiences. The project will also develop a workshop for faculty from partner community and tribal colleges, to help them effectively develop and teach these research courses. Each of the six colleges in this partnership will develop a research course and associated case studies. The research topics will be centered in the local communities and involve the students in both gathering and analyzing data. As a result, the students will be authentically involved in doing research and the research topic will link to issues that are important to the students and their local communities. The courses will be designed in conjunction with articulation agreements between two- and four-year partner institutions. It is expected that the dissemination of the resulting courses and their evaluation will increase the entrance and persistence of students, including underrepresented minority students, in STEM fields. In addition, the project may help colleges to institutionalize new approaches to broadening the participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM fields. The findings of this project will be shared with other community colleges across the country through the project website, potentially contributing to national insights about inclusive pedagogy development.The educational research component of this grant will study the student experiences in these research courses to answer four questions: 1) How well does participating in research courses increase community college students' knowledge in the STEM disciplines? 2) How well does participating in research courses increase these students' interest in and engagement with STEM learning. 3) To what extent does participating in research courses increase community college students' motivation to complete a STEM degree? 4) How successful were the project's activities in reaching the targeted underrepresented minority students? Both the course materials and the research results will be disseminated broadly, particularly targeting other community colleges around the nation. Since community colleges have demographics that are usually more representative of the surrounding communities than four-year colleges, implementing these ideas should improve the fraction of underrepresented minorities in STEM disciplines around the nation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

社区和部落学院是未来 STEM 工作者的重要来源，这些群体目前在 STEM 学科中代表性不足。为了让这些机构的学生对 STEM 职业感兴趣并鼓励他们坚持 STEM 专业，他们在大学的头几年拥有真实的研究经验非常重要。在该项目中，东爱荷华社区学院将确定本科研究课程的有效性，作为为社区学院学生提供真实研究体验的途径。该项目还将为合作伙伴社区和部落学院的教师举办一个研讨会，帮助他们有效地开发和教授这些研究课程。此次合作的六所学院均将开发研究课程和相关案例研究。研究主题将以当地社区为中心，让学生参与收集和分析数据。因此，学生将真正参与研究，并且研究主题将与对学生及其当地社区重要的问题联系起来。这些课程将结合两年和四年合作机构之间的衔接协议进行设计。预计最终课程的传播及其评估将提高学生（包括代表性不足的少数族裔学生）在 STEM 领域的入学率和坚持性。此外，该项目还可以帮助大学将新方法制度化，以扩大代表性不足的少数群体在 STEM 领域的参与。该项目的研究结果将通过项目网站与全国其他社区学院分享，可能有助于国家对包容性教育学发展的见解。该赠款的教育研究部分将研究学生在这些研究课程中的经历，以回答四个问题：1）参与研究课程如何提高社区学院学生在 STEM 学科方面的知识？ 2) 参加研究课程如何提高这些学生对 STEM 学习的兴趣和参与度。 3) 参加研究课程在多大程度上增加了社区学院学生完成 STEM 学位的动力？ 4) 该项目的活动在接触目标代表性不足的少数族裔学生方面是否成功？课程材料和研究成果都将广泛传播，特别是针对全国其他社区大学。由于社区大学的人口统计通常比四年制大学更能代表周围社区，因此实施这些想法应该会提高全国 STEM 学科中代表性不足的少数群体的比例。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。